


Belated Apologies and Confessions

by GeckoGirl89



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Coma, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, Heavy Angst, Hospitalization, References the Events of Season 4, Season/Series 05, impending major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 06:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10826019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeckoGirl89/pseuds/GeckoGirl89
Summary: As he stared down at her fingers, Angel regretted that he had never told Cordelia how much he loved her. He hated that his last words to her had been a promise he had been unable to keep instead of a heartfelt confession.





	Belated Apologies and Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt "any, any, last words spoken to a loved one before it all went to hell" on comment-fic: http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/810040.html?thread=103165496#t103165496
> 
> This is set before 5.12 (You're Welcome) and after Angel took the deal with Wolfram and Hart.

_"I hesitated and...I lost everything that mattered. Now all I do is wait." (The Ballerina, "Waiting in the Wings")_  
  
If Angel knew that would be the night when everything fell apart, he would have just told Cordelia how he felt instead of agreeing to meet up with her at Point Dume. She had given him an opening with her statement that the news might be good depending on how he felt about her (as if that could _ever_ be in doubt.) But Angel had been foolish enough to believe that he suddenly had a chance with her, stupid enough to think that his feelings weren't the kind of thing that should be delivered over the phone, and naive enough to drive out to the cliffs.  
  
Angel should have known that a happy ending wouldn't be that simple for him. That night, Connor locked him up in a box and sank him to the bottom of the sea. At the time, Angel hadn't known that he had just lost Cordy forever. While he was sinking to the bottom of the ocean, Cordelia was being manipulated by her "guide" Skip to ascended to the higher planes. His malicious deception and betrayal of her trust and her self-sacrificial determination to help had doomed her. Cordy's body returned months later, but she was never herself again. First, she had lost her memory, and then she had been controlled and violated by the rogue power Jasmine before she gave birth to herself and left Cordy in a coma.  
  
The hell that Jasmine unleashed on the unfortunate seer had ultimately led Angel to this uncomfortable chair by Cordelia's bedside in another hospital room with obnoxiously bright fluorescent lighting and the strong, unpleasant odor of antiseptic lingering in the air. Angel visited this room every single night after he had completed his daily duties as the new head of the L.A. branch of Wolfram and Hart. His Cordelia, the _real_ Cordelia would probably give him a sharp rebuke and a firm smack upside the head if she learned just how far he had sunk in her absence. But even the thought of her righteous outrage couldn't console Angel now. Not here in this hospital, with the medical equipment hooked up to her body, monitoring her heart to make sure it was still beating, and pumping air into her lungs since she could no longer breathe without assistance. Not now, with her hand so still, so fragile, so cold, and so devastatingly lifeless in his own.  
  
Why did it always have to come back to this? Cordelia hurt by being connected to Angel, for her willing role in his mission to "help the helpless." Angel, sitting next to her, keeping watch and feeling completely lost without her. How could he help anyone when he was so broken and when he couldn't save the woman who meant the most to him? Without Cordelia, he barely managed to wake up in the morning and get through his days.  
  
Angel's thumb stroked over her wrist and felt Cordelia's pulse under her skin, which was weak and almost inaudible to his sensitive hearing over the whirrs and beeps of the machines in the room. Deep down, he knew what her fragile pulse meant, but he wasn't able to consciously accept the devastating truth. As much as he hated sitting in that chair, unable to do anything while Cordelia was in a coma, he couldn't bring himself to let her go.  
  
Angel tightened his grip on Cordy's cool hand and gazed at her still face. If Angel really tried, he could delude himself that she was just asleep.  
  
He drew in a deep, unneeded breath before he released it. "I'm sorry," he croaked out. "For the past year, and just for... everything." Angel felt a tide of remorse sweep over him as he recalled how Jasmine had fooled him for so long, how his own heartbreak had prevented him from clearly seeing what she had done to Cordy. He was sorry that he was a failure as a champion and no longer the man Cordelia had once believed he was. He felt guilty for bringing her into his life in the first place, for not pushing her away before she ended up in this hospital bed simply because he didn't know how to survive without her.

As he stared down at her fingers, Angel regretted that he had never told Cordelia how much he loved her. He hated that his last words to her had been a promise he had been unable to keep instead of a heartfelt confession. Angel hadn't gotten a chance to tell her that night at Point Dume, and he hadn't had the opportunity after the ballet thanks to Groo's unexpected appearance. He had been considering saying something on her birthday, before she was knocked out by her last vision pre-demonization. He was so close to admitting it after Fred's little talk about kyerumption, but Cordy misinterpreted what he had been trying to say. At the time, Angel had felt that the fates were conspiring against him, but those lost opportunities concealed a deeper truth. Angel had been afraid, almost certain of rejection since he had nothing to offer Cordelia. Upon reflection, Angel should have said something years ago, after the first time he held Cordelia's hand like this, when he had seen her catatonic from the endless visions induced by Vocah. He had felt the same sinking emptiness in the center of his gut that told Angel he needed Cordy to come back to him that he felt at this very moment, but this time he could no longer lie to himself about what that sensation meant.  
  
"Please come back," he begged, as if she could. Cordy couldn't even hear him now, and Fred had explained several weeks ago how an involuntary muscle movement didn't mean she would wake up. She wasn't even responding now.  
  
"I need you," he continued. Angel paused, blinking back his tears, and prepared to say what he should have said a long time ago, when she was still with him. "I love you. I know I should have said something earlier, but I just--" Angel broke off, unable to continue as the tears he had vainly attempted to hold back fell down his cheeks. He leaned over to press a shaky kiss to Cordelia's forehead and quickly sat back up.  
  
He traced his thumb over the back of Cordy's limp hand. "You need to wake up, so that you can hear me say that, okay?"  
  
The only sounds that Angel heard was the soft whirr of Cordelia's ventilator, the beep of her heart monitor, and her faint heartbeat underneath those noises. She couldn't reply to him, and Angel bit his lip to stifle his sobs. He wouldn't let himself fall apart, not yet.  
  
For now, he would wait.


End file.
